Just got the recent Architecture Magazine with the PA Awards. Disappointing to say the least. 2 different firms won 2 awards each, Vincent James being one of them and Anderson Anderson being the other. There's also a project that was someone's thesis... when did they start allowing projects without clients (though there were definitely ways around that)?
"Form did not prevail over substance at the 53rd Annual P/A Awards. The jurors' selection of eight projects elevated ideas over designs and weighed heavily toward investigations of public terrain—a research study that explored expanded programming for infrastructure and a former logging site transformed into an interpretive park. The jury sought—and found—projects that offered intellectual, political, social, cultural, material, or technological stimuli. But its members also discovered environmental strategies to be only skin deep and the submitted private houses and housing schemes undistinguished as models of progressive thought. As with P/A juries past, Frank Barkow, Stephen Cassell, Phyllis Lambert, William E. Massie, and Richard Weinstein were discouraged by the submissions-—their mixed reviews of the winning projects suggesting high expectations only partially met—but they also saw opportunity in the profession's increasing engagement with social issues, perhaps even a harbinger of things to come."
in other words, nobody really cares anymore. this magazine is a pale shadow of itself -- i've witnessed the decline since the, um, abrupt end of the kroloff era. not only do i not subscribe anymore, i don't even read it and haven't even seen it in over a year. they don't even carry it in the store anymore, and during the glorious gothic 720 days i could get it (on time) at barnes&ignoble, for crissakes.
oh well, what this profession needs is another awards program...like i need a hole in my head.
That's pretty rough, when the jurors don't even like the winning projects. I'd like to see a graph showing the number of entrants over the years, I'd wager it's on the decline. Also, wasn't Maltzan on the jury last year? 10 bucks says Massie gets one next year.
i just saw the projects...yawn. maltzan's project was pretty great when we saw that project about 3-4years ago. and same goes for the VJAA gig in Beruit. nice,but again isn't that thing at least 4-5 years old now? PA awards seem rather trivial now.
Wow. What the hell is happening with those Editors? Did Kroloff really shoulder the quality of that magazine? I dropped my subscription when the thickness of the magazine was equivalent to that of toilet paper, and 75% of it was ads.
The winners are underwhelming as a group, but I bet Maltzan's Fresno Museum and Vj's Gatehouse will turn out nicely.
silverlake...
as i understand it, architecture no longer sells their magazine
at newstands..ie. it's only available via subscription..or maybe
through their website.
switters...
i worked on that beirut competition at another firm...the competition
was done around this time in 2003...so probably three years old
at least. but vja is probably just finishing up cds or something.
My copy came in the mail last night. An overall underwhelming issue.
I think it was a mistake to gather the jurors comments about individual projects all in one place rather than adjacent to the project being discussed. And surely they had more to say than the 3-4 sentences published!
Sad part is, I think both Architecture and Progressive Architecture were good magazines before Architecture swallowed up PA and then got dumped as the official journal of the AIA in favor of Architectural Record.
but their are still quite a few mags that are better than what
you can get online...
i think architecture is a case where they signed on to a specific
format...namely presenting a few projects in greater detail,
supposedly, with more process...they basically have become a
trade magazine...with more ads than content in a very slim
volume that charges more than it's worth. i also think their
graphic design moved back twenty-thirty years when they moved
to the new format...heavy black lined boxes with generally
poor layouts.
they used to win awards for how they laid out projects..i can't
imagine that being the case now.
the p/a awards used to, seemingly, be about innovation and
projects that were at least semi current and topical with what
the profession was dealing with...the last few have been to be
completely at the whim of the jury...'this year we were looking
for program organization'..'this year we were looking for project
typologies that were atypical'...etc. instead of looking for a
range of projects that represent what's new and interesting.
that and the fact that it has seemed to give most of its awards
to gsd grads or current professors always seemed a bit odd to me..
also, i can't remember, are these awards for american firms only?
or are they the only ones that apply...can't think of too many
international firms ever winning one of these things...koolhaus,
zaha, libeskind, etc...or is it just projects in america?
LiG
agreed, it's quite worrying that PA and Architecture have been eclipsed by even Wallpaper in the US (and it's a UK publication) market, while print continues to thrive in europe.
Wiley (AD), Actar, El Croquis have excellent reception for their infrequent publications, while GA, A+U (both Japanese), AR, Esprit Nouveau, Detail have strong numbers in readership...
for example, my recent arch record has the Agbar tower on the cover. This was finished in mid-2005, but obviously hasn't come onto bob ivy's horizon until now. My colleagues aren't too impressed by the AIA's pet magazine
I think not only are the architecture magazines lacking, they are dead!
If you look at the advertizing clients they manage to land, it has to tell you there in big trouble. I also feel this Awards Thing is a little over the top....wish they would really fund an awards program where they didn't ask for your first born or your architectural pedigree for the real innovators of architecture to have their moment in the sunshine.
it's pretty sad when a magazine has about as much, or less information then you could find on a website. "Wow! 2 whole pages for an award winner! totally worth it!"
I agree with those above who say that the benefit of print is to have more in depth coverage, more process, bigger, better images... sadly architecture gets none of that... This month's issue clocks in at 64 pages. The owners manual to my cell phone is longer than that... pathetic.
i think architecture gets that. every mag would love to have more content. the problem probably is that their ad revs are way, way off thus they do not have the money they once did to hire quality writers and photographers and send them all over the place.
, I think they have just been slow to adjust to the changes in the market. Either they aren't going after the more "design" oriented advertisers (products, high end finishes, etc.) and sticking with the old standbys (gyp board, acoustical tile ceilings, curtainwall), or they've lost enough of their readership where they aren't viable for bringing in the other advertisers now. Looking at a magazine like dwell (granted it only comes out 10 times a year), while it's not a hardcore journal, they have a lot more of the "lifestyle" advertisers who are looking for readers interested in high quality design, and are (seemingly) able to fund more content for their magazine.
yes a lifestyle mag is different than an architectural mag. sure they could and probably should become a lifestyle mag because they hemorrhaging bad, but we need another lifestyle mag like i need a hole in my head. oh wait, i already have a couple of those.
I'm not saying they should change their content, I just think they could have kept some of their content, if they had realized the potential advertisers and shift in interest earlier. I don't think we need another lifestyle mag either, but we do need a better architecture magazine...
i paged through my copy of archit over my bagel and coffee this morning, having already seen most of the commentary here.
the devil on my right shoulder (mouse arm) says damn right, it's shrinking and it should cost much less if it continues to be a simple ad-sponsored presentation of a few projects and very little else. there's not even much news anymore: a reprint of a passage from 'edifice complex' (not new material), one or two announcements...
ok, so the angel on my right shoulder is grateful that architecture still exists and that it's presenting projects that i know i'm not going to see in record. it still looks good and i can flip through and see thorough coverage of a few compelling projects. it is better to see high quality printed images presented together on a page than it is to squint at an image at a time or a too-small composite on the computer screen. so maybe archit becomes more of a pamphlet-style publication? it's not the same mission as record or architectural review.
archit is still performing a service for the architecture world. it's struggling, obviously, which is probably due to a combination of things: our impatience and easy criticism of a magazine that doesn't perform to our (very high) standards and a reflection of the fact that non-architects are more likely to buy the pretty lifestyle magazines alluded to above than they are to buy a magazine which presents solid rigorous projects resulting from ideas.
we could debate the value of print media vis-a-vis architecture (i think the ability of the internet to recreate the experience of a building filmically/in the 4th dimension via video is far more compelling than reading what somebody thinks of the building and relying on a small number of overworked photographs for a visual sense of the project) but: the P/A awards were typically meant to represent some snapshot of whatever vanguard was moving architecture forward (or pulling it backward).
whereas it seems that they are now not moving anywhere but rather are representing a few practicioners' pet themes. of course, post-internet-boom and post-blob it's hard to say where we're going anyway and i for one am not interested in what zeitgeist i'm living in.
I can't bring myself to buy that magazine I'm sorry. Worse from the history its had especially PA in the early 90s. It's a different animal...and I don't like it.
I'll read Architecture Review and lament over the glossies like MARK, WallPaper and Dwell
You pay for it.....somehow it arrives every month free at my house....maybe that comes from having the cover of Architectural Digest in my back pocket....lol....
PA AWARDS - 2006
Just got the recent Architecture Magazine with the PA Awards. Disappointing to say the least. 2 different firms won 2 awards each, Vincent James being one of them and Anderson Anderson being the other. There's also a project that was someone's thesis... when did they start allowing projects without clients (though there were definitely ways around that)?
Here are the complete winners:
Architecture Magzine
the PA awards have been disappointing since i was in school. and that's a long time.
yeah, not much goodness from what the website showed - i'll have to withold final judgement until i see the magazine proper...
"Form did not prevail over substance at the 53rd Annual P/A Awards. The jurors' selection of eight projects elevated ideas over designs and weighed heavily toward investigations of public terrain—a research study that explored expanded programming for infrastructure and a former logging site transformed into an interpretive park. The jury sought—and found—projects that offered intellectual, political, social, cultural, material, or technological stimuli. But its members also discovered environmental strategies to be only skin deep and the submitted private houses and housing schemes undistinguished as models of progressive thought. As with P/A juries past, Frank Barkow, Stephen Cassell, Phyllis Lambert, William E. Massie, and Richard Weinstein were discouraged by the submissions-—their mixed reviews of the winning projects suggesting high expectations only partially met—but they also saw opportunity in the profession's increasing engagement with social issues, perhaps even a harbinger of things to come."
in other words, nobody really cares anymore. this magazine is a pale shadow of itself -- i've witnessed the decline since the, um, abrupt end of the kroloff era. not only do i not subscribe anymore, i don't even read it and haven't even seen it in over a year. they don't even carry it in the store anymore, and during the glorious gothic 720 days i could get it (on time) at barnes&ignoble, for crissakes.
oh well, what this profession needs is another awards program...like i need a hole in my head.
Did it take the Pritker prize for Thom Mayne to realize he's above those silly awards?
That's pretty rough, when the jurors don't even like the winning projects. I'd like to see a graph showing the number of entrants over the years, I'd wager it's on the decline. Also, wasn't Maltzan on the jury last year? 10 bucks says Massie gets one next year.
So right, Silverlake. I'm surprised they just didn't give Morphosis a few, regardless of whether or not they submitted anything.
even the jury didn't like the winners?...reminds me of the Hi All You Fancy Graphics Lovers t-shirt contest from last summer
architecture is dead - mdler
architecture sucks — archinect
anyone notice how thin architecture magazine has become? it sheds a couple pages every issue...
... while keeping the same price of $8.95.
does anyone know where i can buy it in LA? Hennessy & Ingals doesn't even carry it any more...
I had a subscription but they just stopped coming before it ran out. What a joke.
i just saw the projects...yawn. maltzan's project was pretty great when we saw that project about 3-4years ago. and same goes for the VJAA gig in Beruit. nice,but again isn't that thing at least 4-5 years old now? PA awards seem rather trivial now.
bump for a cause
i feel like drug trafficker
last shuffle
Wow. What the hell is happening with those Editors? Did Kroloff really shoulder the quality of that magazine? I dropped my subscription when the thickness of the magazine was equivalent to that of toilet paper, and 75% of it was ads.
The winners are underwhelming as a group, but I bet Maltzan's Fresno Museum and Vj's Gatehouse will turn out nicely.
Thanks for the bumps Abba.
Meta.
silverlake...
as i understand it, architecture no longer sells their magazine
at newstands..ie. it's only available via subscription..or maybe
through their website.
switters...
i worked on that beirut competition at another firm...the competition
was done around this time in 2003...so probably three years old
at least. but vja is probably just finishing up cds or something.
My copy came in the mail last night. An overall underwhelming issue.
I think it was a mistake to gather the jurors comments about individual projects all in one place rather than adjacent to the project being discussed. And surely they had more to say than the 3-4 sentences published!
I wonder if Archinect has directly contributed to the demise of Architecture magazine???
i think the internet in general has contributed to the demise of newspapers and mags.
less often and better quality (projects and printing),
they have to be struggling in the current situation.
the awards and comments seem really uninspiring,
could just be the web presentation of them though.
Sad part is, I think both Architecture and Progressive Architecture were good magazines before Architecture swallowed up PA and then got dumped as the official journal of the AIA in favor of Architectural Record.
but their are still quite a few mags that are better than what
you can get online...
i think architecture is a case where they signed on to a specific
format...namely presenting a few projects in greater detail,
supposedly, with more process...they basically have become a
trade magazine...with more ads than content in a very slim
volume that charges more than it's worth. i also think their
graphic design moved back twenty-thirty years when they moved
to the new format...heavy black lined boxes with generally
poor layouts.
they used to win awards for how they laid out projects..i can't
imagine that being the case now.
the p/a awards used to, seemingly, be about innovation and
projects that were at least semi current and topical with what
the profession was dealing with...the last few have been to be
completely at the whim of the jury...'this year we were looking
for program organization'..'this year we were looking for project
typologies that were atypical'...etc. instead of looking for a
range of projects that represent what's new and interesting.
that and the fact that it has seemed to give most of its awards
to gsd grads or current professors always seemed a bit odd to me..
also, i can't remember, are these awards for american firms only?
or are they the only ones that apply...can't think of too many
international firms ever winning one of these things...koolhaus,
zaha, libeskind, etc...or is it just projects in america?
LiG
agreed, it's quite worrying that PA and Architecture have been eclipsed by even Wallpaper in the US (and it's a UK publication) market, while print continues to thrive in europe.
Wiley (AD), Actar, El Croquis have excellent reception for their infrequent publications, while GA, A+U (both Japanese), AR, Esprit Nouveau, Detail have strong numbers in readership...
for example, my recent arch record has the Agbar tower on the cover. This was finished in mid-2005, but obviously hasn't come onto bob ivy's horizon until now. My colleagues aren't too impressed by the AIA's pet magazine
I think not only are the architecture magazines lacking, they are dead!
If you look at the advertizing clients they manage to land, it has to tell you there in big trouble. I also feel this Awards Thing is a little over the top....wish they would really fund an awards program where they didn't ask for your first born or your architectural pedigree for the real innovators of architecture to have their moment in the sunshine.
This sorry state of affairs is starting to make Architectural Digest palpable.
At least every other month they will do a 8-page spread on a modern work.
... I meant "palettable."
elle decor
it's pretty sad when a magazine has about as much, or less information then you could find on a website. "Wow! 2 whole pages for an award winner! totally worth it!"
I agree with those above who say that the benefit of print is to have more in depth coverage, more process, bigger, better images... sadly architecture gets none of that... This month's issue clocks in at 64 pages. The owners manual to my cell phone is longer than that... pathetic.
i think architecture gets that. every mag would love to have more content. the problem probably is that their ad revs are way, way off thus they do not have the money they once did to hire quality writers and photographers and send them all over the place.
Guess we will have to flow with the Wave...LIFESTYLES....cause they don't seem to have a problem with finding advertisers.
, I think they have just been slow to adjust to the changes in the market. Either they aren't going after the more "design" oriented advertisers (products, high end finishes, etc.) and sticking with the old standbys (gyp board, acoustical tile ceilings, curtainwall), or they've lost enough of their readership where they aren't viable for bringing in the other advertisers now. Looking at a magazine like dwell (granted it only comes out 10 times a year), while it's not a hardcore journal, they have a lot more of the "lifestyle" advertisers who are looking for readers interested in high quality design, and are (seemingly) able to fund more content for their magazine.
yes a lifestyle mag is different than an architectural mag. sure they could and probably should become a lifestyle mag because they hemorrhaging bad, but we need another lifestyle mag like i need a hole in my head. oh wait, i already have a couple of those.
I'm not saying they should change their content, I just think they could have kept some of their content, if they had realized the potential advertisers and shift in interest earlier. I don't think we need another lifestyle mag either, but we do need a better architecture magazine...
true. i haven't been very happy with US archi mag in a long long time. where is the architectural review of the states?
guns and ammo
blue pants weekly*...
*...i pray someone gets that reference
scientology???
pink dress?...daily? i'm lost
i paged through my copy of archit over my bagel and coffee this morning, having already seen most of the commentary here.
the devil on my right shoulder (mouse arm) says damn right, it's shrinking and it should cost much less if it continues to be a simple ad-sponsored presentation of a few projects and very little else. there's not even much news anymore: a reprint of a passage from 'edifice complex' (not new material), one or two announcements...
ok, so the angel on my right shoulder is grateful that architecture still exists and that it's presenting projects that i know i'm not going to see in record. it still looks good and i can flip through and see thorough coverage of a few compelling projects. it is better to see high quality printed images presented together on a page than it is to squint at an image at a time or a too-small composite on the computer screen. so maybe archit becomes more of a pamphlet-style publication? it's not the same mission as record or architectural review.
archit is still performing a service for the architecture world. it's struggling, obviously, which is probably due to a combination of things: our impatience and easy criticism of a magazine that doesn't perform to our (very high) standards and a reflection of the fact that non-architects are more likely to buy the pretty lifestyle magazines alluded to above than they are to buy a magazine which presents solid rigorous projects resulting from ideas.
we could debate the value of print media vis-a-vis architecture (i think the ability of the internet to recreate the experience of a building filmically/in the 4th dimension via video is far more compelling than reading what somebody thinks of the building and relying on a small number of overworked photographs for a visual sense of the project) but: the P/A awards were typically meant to represent some snapshot of whatever vanguard was moving architecture forward (or pulling it backward).
whereas it seems that they are now not moving anywhere but rather are representing a few practicioners' pet themes. of course, post-internet-boom and post-blob it's hard to say where we're going anyway and i for one am not interested in what zeitgeist i'm living in.
I can't bring myself to buy that magazine I'm sorry. Worse from the history its had especially PA in the early 90s. It's a different animal...and I don't like it.
I'll read Architecture Review and lament over the glossies like MARK, WallPaper and Dwell
You pay for it.....somehow it arrives every month free at my house....maybe that comes from having the cover of Architectural Digest in my back pocket....lol....
Any thoughts on PA '07?
Does anyone care about them anymore??
The Chaouni project is pretty cool... uses vernaculars in an intriguing way
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